Now on the big screen, Hollywood royalty Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep relive the glory days when American journalism fought for the public’s right to know. Those were the days, my friends, we thought they’d never end — until now.

The Washington Post made its bones by defying the Nixon Administration to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Ben Bradlee and Katherine Graham went on to bring down their disliked president by exposing Watergate, sunshine being the best disinfectant. Let the people decide, that sort of thing.

Now the Post and its liberal cohorts are trying to bring down another disfavored president by demanding that information be withheld from the public.

The New York Times, MSNBC, CNN & Co. are in a lather that the Devin Nunes/Fusion GPS memo might be released so that Americans can judge for themselves whether the FBI abused its surveillance powers. Memo might undercut the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory. As their hero of the hour, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, says, the public won’t be able to understand it. Not enough context. Nuance and all that.

Rachel Maddow last night (01-31-18) was in self-righteous beast mode with word that the FBI was objecting to its release. So there is your 180-degree pivot: the free press/news media of today covers for the government prosecutors it once sought to expose.

Questioning the FBI disrespects law enforcement?

Our liberal-progressive-socialists acquaintances who blame police for crime now demand respect for law enforcement, that being the secretive FBI. The Bill of Rights champions who once condemned an unaccountable J. Edgar Hoover now want no accountability to the elected representatives of the citizenry.

People who have read the 3½-page memo say it contends that officials from the FBI and the Justice Department were not forthcoming to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance [FISA] Court judge in seeking the [search] warrant. It says the officials relied on information assembled by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, without adequately explaining to the judge that Democrats had financed the research.

Republicans suspect the FBI whitewashed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s secret e-mail server — remember the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tête-a-tête on the tarmac? In the National Review, Andrew McCarthy writes:

The whitewash of the Hillary Clinton e-mails caper was President Barack Obama’s call — not the FBI’s, and not the Justice Department’s. Obama, using a pseudonymous e-mail account, had repeatedly communicated with Secretary Clinton over her private, non-secure email account. If Clinton had been charged, Obama’s culpable involvement would have been patent. … They would show that Obama was complicit in Clinton’s conduct yet faced no criminal charges. That is why such an indictment of Hillary Clinton was never going to happen.

As an antidote, FBI agents bit on the Trump-Russian collusion theory advanced by Steele, the former British spook hired by a research firm (Fusion GPS), financed by the Democrats opposing Trump.

“It’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation [against Trump] during an American political campaign,” said Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes. “Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again.”

John Doe goes to Washington

What? An investigatory agency going rogue? Prosecutorial over-reach? Does that sound anything like John Doe 2 in Wisconsin?

The Wall Street Journal, heroic defender of the First Amendment in the John Doe, is at the ramparts of freedom on this one, too.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is making a last-ditch effort to block the release of a House Intelligence Committee memo detailing the bureau’s behavior during the 2016 election. This is all the more reason to let Americans see it.

The FBI knows what’s in the memo because it has long known what the House committee was seeking to examine. For months it refused to provide access to those documents until director Christopher Wray and the Justice Department faced a contempt of Congress vote. If they now object to the way the House construes the facts, they should have been more cooperative from the start.

Note the FBI’s language about “material omissions” rather than errors of fact. … Americans need to know if the country’s premier law enforcement agency abused its power to influence a presidential election. — “An unaccountable FBI“

Maybe some day they’ll make a movie about the Wall Street Journal, pre-dawn raids with battering rams and clandestine meetings on the tarmac. Tom Hanks could play Devin Nunes.

38 Responses to Prosecutorial over-reach at the FBI? Nah! Quash the memo!

The fact that the public release of this “memo” of cherry-picked facts and intentional omissions, written by partisan hack staffers, is considered a threat to national security by the FBI and the DOJ (those lefty hotbeds!) means nothing to you, not when it comes to defending Our Criminal-in-Chief in the White House. The fact that warrants were issued on evidence besides the Steele dossier (which was initiated by conservatives and keeps being corroborated) means nothing to you. The fact that the FISA authorized surveillance of goofball Carter Page was renewed by the court, which would only happen if the initial surveillance was productive, means nothing to you.
It seems it’s prosecutorial over-reach only when it’s directed at Republicans, according to you. (Even when it’s conducted by Republicans!) Threats to our Constitution and the rule of law? Pffft!, according to you.

You got one thing right bob-o, and that is your last sentence:
“Threats to our Constitution and the rule of law? Pffft!, according to you.”
I really doubt this memo is even remotely a threat to our Constitution and rule of law, so let’s see it.
Your post implies you have done much research on this subject, but you failed to offer supporting evidence of your claims.
The actual reason all along for protecting Hillary was to protect bob-o’s Champion Obama.
Our Government and appendages are much like an abscessed tooth…

The memo contains information whose public release threatens national security, according to those who’d know. The threat to our constitution comes from the purpose of releasing the memo; to undercut the Mueller investigation. It’s remarkable the GOP is not exerting oversight, but is actively trying to undermine an investigation by the non-partisan professionals of our federal law enforcement agencies, for nakedly partisan purposes.
I haven’t done “much research” on this. I just have the time to follow a lot of different, reputable media. Not Hannity.

Back when I was naive, and trusted the Gov. and the FBI, etc. I would have been against the memo’s release.
Now we have John Doe #2, and Lying James Clapper etc.
Like Paul Ryan said, sunshine is a great disinfectant.
The American people need to take back there Gov. and reign in these arrogant leaders, remind them they work for the people not for themselves, or whatever party they attach themselves to. Lets see the memo.

Aww com’n Abob, don’t be so fearful and have a little faith in our Republic.
Surely you understand a little transparency will not be our downfall.
And Hannity is the mirror image of your favorite R. Maddow, but superior at his craft and with more and better guests.

Oh, but I DO have faith. In an economy that has steadily improved from the state the last GOP president left it in 9 years ago (thanks, Obama!), Trump remains the least popular president ever after his first year in office, despite the prosperity. It gives me hope, when a large majority of our fellow citizens aren’t buying his shtick.
Yet the truth remains that a cherry-picked document is not transparency, unless they allowed a Democratic rebuttal to be released at the same time, which Nunes and the GOP won’t.
I suppose Hannity could be considered superior at his craft if you consider his craft to be conspiracist fact-free bombast. Because, yeah, he’s better at that.

Popularity is overrated Abob, and historically so.
Would you prefer the ultra-corrupt Hillbilly? None of the widespread corruption would have been exposed if she had been elected, and would have only deepened.
How do you classify as cherry picked? Have you seen it?

It’s cool you are a Maddow apologist. Each to their own.
I was simply making the point they are the same but polar opposites politically,
and that Hannity’ show is superior with superior ratings compared to your cherished little princess. Maddow could not even prevail despite all the Trump haters she appeals to.
Fox is the most watched cable network in both primetime and daytime for two years in a row.
Ouch! That must hurt…

30 years of pushing for home ownership and loosening loan standards led to unsustainable bubble which resulted in perfect storm during Bush’s presidency. The fed kept interest rates abnormally low the entire time during his presidency and predatory lenders sold to the people home ownership was great investment. So everyone took advantage of that situation. The last 2 years democrats had total control of the congress, Bush was completely hand cuffed and defeated and was a lame dunk. He warned the nation and congress well in advance, multiple times about this issue and that the pending Bubble could be disastrous if not acted on immediately, how many democrats jumped to fix the problem, the number was Zero… They waited for the biggest crash to occur which caused the whole mess, that way they could solidify W. as bad and his fault. The politicians were complicit in letting the economy fail and why not, they pretty much new they were going to will in the next election.
Also you had Car Companies, Giant Insurance. Banks, etc. heavily invested in these derivative holdings, so when the housing market and everyone’s credit was fully extended and no one was borrowing any more the crash occurred. Those crashing caused heavy job losses. Could Democrats of the time run by Moveon.org and code pink have resolved or lessened the crash we will never know but we know for sure they did not try to stop from occurring.
Yes under Obama things did improve at a very slow pace because of the boot on the throat of capitalism. His economy had to be propped up 3 times by the federal reserve to the tune of 4 trillion dollars. Growth was anemic but people did go back to work under much worse job conditions and no wage growth. He was president during extraordinary times, his economy was never great.

Once that Boot was removed during the last year we are finally seeing things start to flourish again. Massive investments in america are occurring right now not seen since the 90’s. The question is this the start or end of something we will find out.

That is my response to liberals theory that Bush and Republicans caused the great recession. now back to the topic.

Democrat hubris begat Nemesis. His name is Trump.
Dems went from ‘demographics is destiny’ and ‘we got a lock on governing for 40 years’ to utter defeat.
Its as if God said ‘let me remind them what goes before a fall’ and boy, have they.
The Deep State (Washington Party) was 94% certain of Hillary’s presidency and bet the ranch. Then they paid for a pathetic dossier, Brennan, Clapper and Comey force it on the president elect, feed it to the media and voila! seventeen intelligence agencies and ABob agree its Russian/Trump collusion all the way down.
What we are seeing is Obama and his merry Corruptocrats had started a slo mo coup d’etat against a duly elected President Trump.
Thankfully Obama was as competent at this as he was in everything else.

Did you happen to read Thomas Edsall’s recent NYT column? It matters because he just opened the floodgates. The Dems/Progs have to concede ground, or really go for broke. The guys Edsall quotes are basically saying: “Democrats need to make a deal with Trump so we can quickly bury this before more people figure out what’s going on.” There’s not even a fig leaf attempt to connect mass immigration to broader progressive priorities; it’s just “These are our future clients and servants; we have to protect our positions at all costs. Cut a deal now that we can easily reverse once we’re in control, so people will forget about it. Because the more they think about it, the likelier it becomes that they’ll figure out what we’re up to and try to squash it for good.”

Now back to Memo Release, One would think we would want to know what these executive branches were up to especially if this allows more things to come to light. Of course this is partisan but I also think it does not contain any lies. History is spun all the time.
Trump has been a public and controversial figure for years, he has been audited by IRS perpetually. Bob claims he is a criminal, Exactly what Crime. He has been under investigation for years his life has been under microscope. If there was something thre they would have found it by now.

Mueller’s job is to find indictments no matter for what, look at Ken Starr, Clinton was not indicted for anything other than perjury/obstruction of justice because he lied about and affair in the white house. Nothing pertaining to Whitewater and other business dealing.
It was wrong then and it wrong now.

If the Final Dossier started by a republicans and completed by a then candidate’s Clinton opposition research team was not verified at the time and is still unverifiable for much of what we know, was used to get a FISA warrant to spy on a then candidate, nominee and president elect. That is not acceptable in the USA against any person. It is also not acceptable that Extremely Biased players requested the FISA Warrant and then led the investigation at the top levels of the DOJ and FBI. That is completely against the constitution and treasonous.

Maybe they will actually find a crime on Trump and he will be indicted for something other than a process crime which is what looks like will happen. Mueller is there to find any crime related to the start of the investigation or whether it is perjury crime perpetuated by holding all the cards and leading testimony in that direction under oath. Which is what happened to Clinton and what will happen to Trump.

The Nunes Memo is the tip of the iceberg, and more and more damaging memos and information is going to be release.

Recently,
Wolf’s book…. Meep
Russia, Russia, Russia…. Meep meep
Top floor of the FBI Bldg……… Meep meep
Now its Muellar time and they got Trump for sure this time.
Wile E. Progressives not good at perceiving patterns.

Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durbin are trying to spin this as made up lies by Nunes. Ok cannot wait for the memo from ole full of Schiff democrat CA. I want to see spin both ways and I will make up my mind from that. From where it stands I believe that Nunes memo synopsis is just the tip of the iceberg for a thorough examinations of both DOJ and FBI. Again much like John Does in WI , Democrats are making their stand on Republican are spinning and lying. We saw what has been discovered about opposition research by bad actors at the GAB going back the 1990s.

Seems like a special counsel is in order if there ever was one, The job of a special counsel is to investigate and indict. I mean the unverified and media planted leaked dossier was good enough to open one against the Trump team. Which contains much less factual material than what Nunes based his memo on.

Sessions do you job, interview Rosenstein under oath on record, if you feel his answers are less than forth coming. I’m sorry you are fired. Then appoint a real DAG.

FBI acting more like bureaucrats than investigators. Drain the swamp…
I particularly enjoyed the comments following the article below.

FBI Knew About Former Team USA Doctor Nassar’s Sexual Assault Allegations for Over 14 Months, Yet Dragged Its Feet

While the FBI looked into allegations of the molestation of three gymnasts by now-convicted former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, at least 40 girls and women say that Nassar molested them from the time when he first showed up on the FBI’s radar until an Indianapolis Star investigation exposed him 14 months later, The New York Times reports.

So now it’s 2-5; what do you think today. Memo=Dud. gop fighting to keep the Dem’s memo from being released. Harley is closing a plant in KC and opening one in Thailand. 100 jobs lost in Neenah. Ryan is giddy because a lady took home an extra buck and a half last week. Pentagon can’t figure out where 800 million went. On the bright side the “gills” are biting.

Richard (nothisrealname) Lesiak inquires, “what do you think today.”
I think you are still unable to see the forest for the trees.
However, I do not hold that against you as we all grow and change in our own time.

I see just fine and I don’t like the view. 600 wis. jobs going out the door and Scooter is puking in his cheerios trying to figure out how to give them a taxpayer bail-out on top of Foxcon. You can friend me on facebook anytime you want, but I’m sure you will not want to take off your batman mask. In fact anyone of you people hiding behind your (clever?) nicknames can do the same. If you don’t you should change your handle to CHICKENMAN.

Poor Richard,
Can’t you people keep your talking points straight. Pelosi says its a constitutional crisis now you tell its a dud. No, its a coup launched by incompetent partisan hacks. So was the John Doe and the GAB.
Remember?

I used to work in the State Assembly and needed a nom de guerre. It used to really annoy Dave that I knew so much about state politics, yet he couldn’t figure out who I was. (No, I’m still not Graeme Zelinski.) At least I use half my real name and I’m not hung up on comic books.

There has been an awful lot of praise heaped upon Robert Mueller by the talking heads on all the networks. But is it warranted? The disturbing article below came out today.

Mystery surrounds Robert Mueller and his investigation into Russia and President Trump. Some think he is the ultimate professional, others that he is a Democrat lackey, still others maintain he is working on Trump’s side.

We can see how he works if we look at how Mueller ran his second-most important investigation as FBI Director. In September of 2001, an entity began mailing anthrax through the US Postal system, hitting such prominent targets as NBC and Senator Daschle’s office. The terrorist attacks killed five and left others hospitalized. The world panicked.

Under Mueller’s management, the FBI launched an investigation lasting ten years. They now brag about spending “hundreds of thousands of investigator hours on this case.” Let’s take a closer look at Mueller’s response to understand the context of the investigation — who his people investigated, targeted, and found guilty.

I don’t read The Federalist.com and I’m not gonna start after this article. The author has had two books published…on playing poker. I can find no other published articles or writings by him. He misspelled Johns Hopkins. What else wasn’t proofed? This piece is rubbish, but it is part of the broad campaign by the Trumpists to discredit a guy who’s hard to discredit. Batman, think critically about your news sources.

“Thou doth protest too much.”
I was referring to your claim that you are using half your real name and the amount of verbiage you committed to defending yourself.
Let it go dude, no one cares that you are only willing to post anonymously.

We know Mueller by the astonishingly unbiased inquisitors he hired for the Trump investigation.
Barack Obama turned DC into Chicago.
Due to the amazing degree of corruption Hillary and Obama shared, you can bet there are many bodies yet to be unearthed.
And yet another indication of why they so fear President Trump.

Asking for a friend

Mike Huckabee asks: What would a federal judge do if Jim Acosta challenged him in his courtroom, argued and refused to give up the microphone when a bailiff tried to retrieve it?

Unmet needs?

‘Got anything for us?’

MidTown 8:25 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 18 — Officers met with a victim (26-year-old AAM) who reported being approached by two AAMs, one AAF and one WF (possibly all juveniles) as he was waiting for a bus. The victim stated the “juveniles” asked him if he had anything for them. The victim said he referred to them as “kids” which caused the two AAM’s to batter him. The suspects fled. The victim sustained visible injuries, including a chipped tooth.

Someone (could) DID get hurt like this!

11:35 p.m. Nov. 17 — A Fitchburg police officer spotted a Subaru Forrester that was listed as stolen through MPD. The vehicle took off when a stop was initiated. The vehicle ended up crashing into an unoccupied house near Allied Dr, located within the City of Madison. The house sustained heavy damage and the vehicle was totaled. All three occupants were transported to the hospital.

The suspect driver was a 16-year-old AAM, whose injuries were unknown at the time of this entry. A 14-year-old AAF passenger sustained a broken arm. A 14-year-old AAM passenger had a fractured/dislocated hip and will be admitted for surgery. Fitchburg PD took the vehicle for evidence in their investigation and MPD took the crash investigation.

Even MORE school-to-prison at La Follette H.S.

Friday’s Disturbance — 3:44 pm. Nov. 16 — The La Follette High School Educational Resource Officer was outside monitoring students when a suspect (30-year-old AAF) began yelling threats from the street at school staff. The suspect’s daughter (14-year-old AAF) threw a water bottle at a group of students in front of the school and then fled with her mother in a vehicle. Officers performed a traffic stop on the vehicle and while officers attempted to detain the suspects, an additional passenger/suspect (16-year-old AAF) was arrested for interfering. The 30-year-old suspect was conveyed to the Dane County Jail while the teenagers were cited for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Tuesday’s disturbance — 9:55 a.m. Nov. 13 — School Resource Officer (SRO) at La Follette High School asked for additional resources as a disturbance was breaking out in the commons area of the school.